"Blending" the University: Beyond MOOCs
SXSWeduWed., March 6, 2013
Gigi Johnson, EdDMaremel Institute @maremel
#BlendU#SXSWeduFlickr/PromoMadrid
1.What is "blended"? And what is a MOOC?
2.Rethinking time, place, and data politics
3.Reexamining the business models of higher education content
4.Rich opportunities and where my heart sings
4 FramesToday
4 FramesToday
Distance Education: Long Paths
KUHT . "Dr. Richard I. Evans." June 8, 1953. University of Houston Digital Library. <http://digital.lib.uh.edu/u?/p15195coll38,195>
More than 6 million students in the U.S. took at least one online course in 2010
Sources: Allen & Seaman, 2011; National Center for Education Statistics, 2010
31% of US Higher Education Students are Engaging Learning Online
Not Just “Those For-Profits”
235,000 enrollments in 1,200 courses
50,000 enrollments to 10,300 students in 70 degree and certificate programs
30,000 students for $6,000/year each
27,000 studentsOnline courses to 7,000 of its 31,000 students
Rio Salado College (AZ), with 40,000 students with its online programsOblinger (2012)
Live
Asynchronous
Synchronous
Anywhere
Blended: Where Online Expands F2F Options
Message Boards
Co-Located Classes
Blended Learning: More than a Decade of Research• 1999-2003: Program in Course Redesign
• $8.8mm from Pew• 30 colleges and universities • Quality matched or improved upon prior face-to-face courses,
and saved 20-84% of costs (Twigg, 2003) (http://www.thencat.org/PCR.htm)
• 2001: Temple University • 2002: University of Wisconsin
• 17 faculty redesigned their traditional courses into blended courses (Aycock, Garnham, & Kaleta, 2002)
• 2001: The Learning Technology Consortium• Blended learning programs at 9 universities: Indiana U, Virginal
Tech, U. of Delaware, U. of Florida, U. of Georgia, U. of N. Carolina, Notre Dame, U. of Pittsburgh, and Wake Forest.
US Dept. of Ed Meta-study: Blended Learning Can Be More Effective than Online or Face-to-Face (F2F)
• Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia and Jones (2010, revised)• Meta-study for the U.S. Department of Education • Evaluated studies with objective measures from 1996-2008
involving online, face-to-face, and blended courses, nearly all in higher education (versus K12). Online vs. FTF: Learning outcomes for online and face-to-face courses were statistically indistinct. Types of online learning and structures did not matter.
• Blended Learning vs. FTF: Blended learning did show statistically significant improvements in learning outcomes, especially connected with self-monitoring of student understanding and with reflection.
• Content delivery methods (e.g., lecture vs. use of video, live vs. embedded quizzes) made no significant differences.
• Improvements stemmed from projects involving collaboration, additional time spent versus the traditional classroom hours, and additional materials available for instruction and learning versus F2F course designs.
• Content delivery methods (e.g., lecture vs. use of video, live vs. embedded quizzes) made no significant differences.
• Improvements stemmed from projects involving collaboration, additional time spent versus the traditional classroom hours, and additional materials available for instruction and learning versus F2F course designs.
Diverse Blended Learning Paths
• CS50, at Harvard (now part of edx)• 615-student must-take class introductory computer science class• Virtual office hours, TA-scribed lecture notes, an evening phone hotline, and
two multimedia producers (https://www.cs50.net/)• Plaid Avenger, Virginia Tech (http://www.plaidavenger.com/).
• 3,000-student undergraduate world affairs course• Portfolio of 13 social media engagement assignments, plus just-in-time videos
and collaborative discussion boards to engage his students; 2 part-time TAs and a lot of data-scraping collaboration and automation
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County• 100 staff and faculty across the university to build a cohort around using digital
storytelling--New Media Studio (http://www.umbc.edu/studio/); (Community of Practice faculty profiles: http://www.umbc.edu/oit/newmedia/studio/digitalstories/profiles.php)
Oblinger (2012)
Now . . . MOOC-Expanded Content Ecosystems
ConnectivistMOOCs (cMOOCs)
2008 to today Often emergent, messy
learning Group exploration and co-
creation
Large-Scale University-Duplicated MOOCs (xMOOCs)
2011-now Knowledge tested and
reviewed Some mirror F2F class “Sage on the Stage” Increasing use of
subgroups and forced collaboration
http://mfeldstein.com/four-barriers-that-moocs-must-overcome-to-become-sustainable-model/
MOOC Paths
Impact of the Cloud on Education
Breaking time and space barriers
Local + Exclusive =Historical Barriers to Entry
What is a class?Jarring time and space definitionsClass -- needs a Beginning, Middle, and End?Alternative Reality Games as Classes?
Magic Buttons of Unquestioned Time
• Assigning class times and spaces• Measuring faculty and students on course
hours• Flipping classrooms to eat into non-class time• Artificial nature of Terms
• Why start in the Fall?• Why quarters or semesters except hiring and space?
Financial aid pushed into term system
Accelerate the quarters and helping public universities flex intake and support
The D-Word
• Diagnostics
• U of Phoenix – contact students just to check in
• Concept of Mass Personalization• Knewton and others
• Supervision
“If I wanted people to see my work, I would have gone into industry."
Static Interactive
Collaborative
Solo
Forums
PagesFiles
URLs
Webinar
Collaborative community
Publishing
Workshops
SurveysAssignments
QuizzesLesson
Books
Chat
Embeds
ProjectsE-portfolios
Personal
Storage
Time + Place + Data = Collaboration and Interactivity
Learning: Two-Way + Ubiquitous
• Cloud-Based Expansions• SaaS-led Ease of Entry• Commoditizable Systems without upfront
investments• BYOD as expected norm with browser based
engagement or simple downloads• Limits: Program marketing, overhead and
content costs, not time and place • 2012: Explosion of MOOCs
AbundantCreation
University as Content Filter
Creative Community Source: Caves, Creative Industries, 2000
Physical costs and marketing as historical barrier to entryPhysical costs and marketing as historical barrier to entry
"Album": Black Box and Rock Walls
MailersWebsitesPurchased listsHigh
Schoolers
MagazineRankings
Alumni
Transparency Challenges in "Album" Model
Filter Package Accreditation Rankings: awkward
measures of input/output
Filter Package Accreditation Rankings: awkward
measures of input/output
Content Production Model: Live Classes
UniversityInstructorUniversityInstructor
Live Class ExperienceLive Class Experience
PublisherPublisherOther
UniversityInstructor
OtherUniversityInstructor
TextbookPaid by Student
TextbookPaid by Student
TA as Seminar Instructor and/or
Grader
TA as Seminar Instructor and/or
Grader
Blended/Flipped Video Production: Takes $ and a Village
UniversityInstructorUniversityInstructor
Blended Class Experience
Blended Class Experience
Publisher?University?
MOOC?
Publisher?University?
MOOC?MultimediaPaid by ??MultimediaPaid by ??
Syndication Models?Syndication Models?
Instructional designer
Instructional designer
TA as Community Manager
TA as Community Manager
AnimatorAnimator
Video Producer and Editor
Video Producer and Editor
Business Model Challenges
• Who owns what?• Syllabus vs. class vs.
PowerPoints vs. produced video
• Professor often not paid for course development
• Who buys and pays for what?• Production funding
from Publishers? Universities?
• Syndication – who has rights to reruns?
• IP within the class content vs. Fair Use
• Whose time?
Content Creation Cost and Risk
• Cost Elements for a live class vs. online• Lecturer Average Pay: $3-4K/class• Cost to record: $20-100K?
• No variable pay by volume . . . who benefits?
Challenges for the University as Organization• Organizational support structures – Built
to support classes with definite times, places, and historical rules
• Cost Structures – Who pays for the shift from F2F to blended?
• Faculty Development – Ghettoized in teaching and learning centers
• Rethinking faculty role(s)• Role of content experts, course designers,
instructors, and community managers• Teaching identity – who am I?
• Values of Time – What merits a class hour of work?
Content Licensing – Fragmented
OER •Big movements already in Open Educational Resources (e.g., Merlot, Connexion, a la Learning Registry and Gooru)•Thin marketplace for revenue-share or revenue-producing licensing (though on the horizon)•MOOCs -- Production costs w/o revenue model
• BIG brand dumping?
Blur of Publishing and Licensing•Books coming the other way – Publishers trying to lock schools into full packages of print and content delivery•Role of books and copyrighted materials in MOOCs – upside of the Freemium Model?•Bookstore model broken
• B&N aggregating university bookstores selling sweatshirts and brand logos• Course Readers next wave
Legal issues
• IP Ownership differs between universities• “Paying for Re-runs”• In-class IP and the role of readings and
simulations
Flickr/jjorogen
Decoding the Experience: Ease of Entry?
• Learning entry experience may be very different by course
• Need to build student skills for proactive learning
Template-driven student learner population encouraged by NCLB
COI – Community of Inquiry -- as more than magic dust Flickr/romana klee
Opportunity: Static to Context Rich
• Transactional, static learning• Relational, context-driven learning
• Building, continuing opportunity
Transactional, static
learning
Transactional, static
learning
Relational, context-
driven learning
Relational, context-
driven learning
Learning as Community
• Different skills in creating community• Community managers• Peer learning• Tribes and PLNs
• Concepts of learning together without an “end date”
Source: COI; Garrison et al 2000http://peeragogy.org/http://is.gd/v101peeragogy
Re-Containerizing Learning
• When does education end?• Continuing communities of practice• New Opportunities as co-learners beyond
the term? • Break from learning environment as
“alumni”
My Own Passions in Blended
• Courses for change• Using context in asynchronous, distributed
learning• Action learning• Cross licensing great content• Impact on outside world
Continuing Conversations
Dr. Gigi JohnsonMaremel [email protected]@maremel
Google Community: Blending the Universityhttps://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/106888717177464309972
Related Links
• Steve Kolowich (Mar. 4, 2013), “Online Education May Make Top Colleges More Elite, Speakers Say,” Chronicle of Higher Education, http://chronicle.com/article/Online-Education-May-Make-Top/137687/
• Taylor Walsh (2010), Unlocking the Gates: How and Why Leading Universities Are Opening Up Access to Their Courses, Princeton Press.
• Diana Oblinger, Ed. (2012), Game Changers: Education and Information Technologies, EDUCAUSE. (free download at http://www.educause.edu/research-publications/books/game-changers-education-and-information-technologies)
• Chris Anderson (2008), Free: Why $0.00 is the Future of Business, Wired Magazine, http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free
• Barbara Means, Yukie Toyama, Robert Murphy, Marianne Bakia, and Karla Jones (2010, revised), Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies, US Dept. of Education, http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf